Japanese electronics giant Sony is set to celebrate 30 years since it launched the PlayStation console, the little grey box that catapulted the firm into the gaming big league.PlayStation was Sony’s first foray into the world of video games and when it hit the shelves in Japan on December 3, 1994, the company needed to sell one million units to cover its costs.In the end, the gadget became a legend, selling more than 102 million units, helping to launch many of the industry’s best-loved franchises and positioning Sony as a heavyweight in a hugely lucrative sector.”PlayStation changed the history of video games,” said Hiroyuki Maeda, a Japanese specialist in video game history.”It truly transformed everything: hardware, software, distribution and marketing.”One of the keys to its success was broadening the appeal of a pastime that had often been dismissed as a hobby for children. From the off, the firm was clear that it wanted to trash this image.In part this stems from Sony’s rivalry with Nintendo, which was already a dominant player in the sector by the mid-1990s, but whose games skewed young.- Sony ‘humiliated’ -The original PlayStation can trace its history to a falling out between the two great Japanese firms.They had partnered in the late 1980s to develop a version of the Super Nintendo console with an in-built CD player.But Nintendo suspected Sony were using the project as a way to muscle into the gaming sector and abruptly cancelled the partnership in 1991.”Sony found itself in a humiliating position,” said Maeda, so pushed ahead with the project by itself.The hardware proved to be revolutionary, CD-ROMs being cheaper and storing much more data than the cartridges used by Nintendo and other consoles.And to further distinguish itself from Nintendo, Sony courted a young adult audience with fighting games like “Tekken”, out-and-out horror with “Resident Evil” and “Silent Hill”, and military titles like “Metal Gear Solid”.Its advertising also followed a more grown-up path.Hollywood auteur David Lynch was drafted in to direct ads for the PS2 launched in 2000 — conjuring a nightmare vision of floating heads and talking ducks certainly not meant for younger audiences.”The older audience obviously had better purchasing power than children,” said Philippe Dubois, founder of M05, a French association that aims to preserve digital heritage.The PS2 is still the most successful console in history, having sold more than 160 million units.- ‘New sensations’ -Over the past 30 years, the competition has intensified and the technology has been honed.While Sega and other rivals have fallen by the wayside, Microsoft has entered the fray with its Xbox, and Nintendo is still on the scene with its Switch console.But the industry is enduring tough times.A surge in popularity and investment during the pandemic has subsided and Sony’s PlayStation division recently laid off hundreds of workers.Plenty of analysts are also predicting that cloud gaming will soon render consoles obsolete.Sony appears undaunted though, recently launching an upgraded version of its PS5 with a marketing push that highlighted new AI features.Bloomberg has reported that the Japanese firm is also planning a new hand-held version of the PlayStation, which would once again pit it against old rival Nintendo, undisputed king of portable devices.However, for the purists, few innovations were as great as the original console’s ability to handle 3D graphics.The technology was instrumental for the appeal of classic games such as “Tomb Raider” and “Final Fantasy VII”.”We discovered sensations, emotions that we hadn’t experienced with earlier consoles,” said French YouTuber and PlayStation enthusiast Cyril 2.0.He said he had collected almost every title released for the PlayStation in Europe — some 1,400 — and insisted the formula for success was not complicated.”For consoles, games are still the most important thing,” he said.

Since 1994, PlayStation’s five consoles have changed video game history. From the development of the controller to scuffles at stores to Saddam Hussein’s military, here are five interesting things to know:- Grey or bust -The original PlayStation, launched in Japan on December 3, 1994 was grey — inspired by the “workstation” computers of the era, according to gaming history expert Hiroyuki Maeda.”The heads of Sony’s US division would have preferred black, which they felt was more elegant, but the Japanese side categorically refused,” Maeda told AFP.They eventually relented, however. Apart from colourful limited edition versions, the PlayStation 2, 3 and 4 were black. The PlayStation 5, released in 2020, is white.- Joystick juggling -When Sony built the first PlayStation, it was inexperienced in making consoles, so “the creation of the controller was one of the biggest challenges”, Maeda said.”It’s said they made more than 200 prototypes,” he said.Sony’s CEO at the time, Norio Ohga — an experienced pilot — pushed for a more sculpted design for the controller, which with its signature triangle, circle, cross and square buttons, has changed little over the years.In Japan, a circle is a sign of approval, and so for years, it was the controller button for “OK”, with the cross button meaning cancel. The feature was inverted on PlayStation models sold in the West.But Sony, conscious of the US market’s importance, abandoned this Japanese peculiarity in its most recent console, the PlayStation 5.- Game library -PlayStation owes much of its success to its roster of games.Sony’s choice to use CDs instead of cartridges reduced manufacturing costs and production times, encouraging more game makers to create titles for its consoles.”Ridge Racer” brought the 3D racing genre out of arcades and showed off the console’s technical abilities, while early stealth game “Metal Gear Solid” bridged the gap between games and cinema.”Final Fantasy VII” — the first 3D instalment in the cult series, and the first not made for Nintendo consoles — also introduced Japanese role-playing games to many Western players.Other titles with a place in video game history are survival-horror classic “Resident Evil” and the global media franchise “Tomb Raider”.- Store success -The PlayStation 2 is the top-selling console in the history of video games, with more than 160 million units sold.One reason for its success is that it can also play DVDs — allowing customers to kill two birds with one stone.The limited supply of the PS2 and its huge demand led to fights when it was launched, including at the Virgin Megastore on the Champs-Elysées in Paris.- War machine? -In late 2000, US media network NBC reported that Saddam Hussein’s Iraqhad acquired 1,400 PlayStation 2 consoles to use their powerful microprocessors in missile guidance systems.The same year, the machine was reportedly placed on a list of sensitive items by the Japanese government because of its advanced graphics processing capabilities, raising fears of potential military use.